"Dying isn't easy for most people. Instinct is a real bitch and she wants to live.”

What a beautifully bizarre brain Laird Barron keeps in his skull. But then again, he’s from Alaska so…it tracks. While this novel transcends time and space (on occasion) it also explores the grimdark scenery of The Last Frontier, the 49th nightmare state, home of the midnight sun and the polar night: Alaska herself! Come for the winding, often inter-connected, stories of wilderness, women being a little bad, maybe the devil?, and so many dogs (…CW.) Stay for the truly unique and deliciously cosmic mythos that Barron expertly crafts throughout these sixteen stories.

“Girls Without Their Faces On,” “Swift to Chase,” and “Don’t Make Me Assume My Ultimate Form” are the standouts for me, but it was hard to choose just three. I would follow Jessica Mace with devotion until the end of time…and then the time after that…and so forth. Additionally, I will think about “Tiptoe” for the rest of my life, every single paragraph, specifically the last page and a half of that multi-generational freakshow. 

A lot of the punch was surreptitiously veiled behind subtext, and for some of these stories, I needed that subtext to be IN-text. Barron’s prose didn’t hold back, however, and I often found myself thinking, “Get to the point,” but then the point would come and I’d say, “Oh, no.” Be careful what you wish for, I suppose.

4/5 “Because, there's a war on. It's as tiny and savage as colonies of insects going at it. I'd rather not be on the side that gets annihilated. But yeah, we're gonna lose. Wanna fuck?”